American Society of Bone and Mineral Research young investigator award

December 16, 2011

Dr Ken Poole, University Lecturer in Metabolic Bone Disease and Rheumatology was awarded the young investigator award by the American Society of Bone and Mineral Research this year. The ASBMR is the premier professional, scientific and medical society worldwide, established to promote excellence in bone and mineral research and to facilitate the translation of that research into clinical practice. With the image analysis expertise of Graham Treece, Andrew Gee and Paul Mayhew (colleagues from the University of Cambridge Engineering for Clinical Practice initiative), Ken was part of a team that developed a new imaging technique for measuring bone structure, whereby bone mass and thickness can be visualised in 3D with great accuracy, using ordinary clinical CT scans of patients. By applying this technique to 150 patients with and without acute hip fracture, the team was able to discover focal osteoporosis in a particular part of the hip that is at risk both in sideways falls and in spontaneous ‘atraumatic’ fracture of the hip. This work builds on more than a decade of histological analysis of orthopaedic femoral neck biopsies by Dr Jonathan Reeve’s group, and translates those findings into a clinical analysis technique. The analysis was part funded by Arthritis Research UK and the Evelyn Trust and the team linked up with Professor Jan Stepan from Charles University Prague to plan the study and recruit patients.”